Red light cameras are no longer issuing tickets to motorists in America’s fourth-largest city. The Houston, Texas city council on Monday canvassed the results of the November 2 vote and ordered the cameras unplugged. In the nearby city of Baytown, red light cameras will be disabled at midnight on November 26.

“The voting public has spoken,” Houston City Attorney David M. Feldman wrote Monday in a letter to Jim Tuton, CEO of the camera contractor American Traffic Solutions (ATS). “Houston must follow the mandate of the electorate. Houston hereby terminates its contract with ATS. This termination is effective immediately. ATS is required to turn off all red light cameras installed and/or monitored by reason of the contract and ATS is to do so immediately.”

(Read More…)

It’s definitive: The fabled New York Yellow Cab will either be replaced by a minivan made in Japan, or by a something made in Turkey. After a long “Taxi of Tomorrow” competition, the NYC’s  Taxi has now announced the final contestants:

• Nissan’s entry is based on Nissan’s NV200 model, made in Japan.
• Then there is the futuristic V1 by Turkish automaker Karsan Otomotiv. It has a wheelchair ramp, and a glass ceiling for admirers of the Manhattan Skyline.
• Lastly, there is the bland entry by Ford, based on their Transit Connect ute.

Which one would the “Buy American” crowd prefer? The answer is easy: (Read More…)

Ready to buy some GM share tomorrow? A consummate insider who sits on the board of an important GM company says: Don’t.

Klaus-Franz, Chair of the Opel works council and Vice Chairman of the Opel supervisory board warns:  “The IPO is premature. Sure, GM has delivered three good quarters. But he restructuring in Europe must be finished to give investors the visibility they need.”

Franz knows the skeletons hidden in Opel’s closet. In an interview with Germany’s Focus Magazine, Franz gives valuable investment advice to potential GM shareholders. To repeat: “Don’t.” (Read More…)

Porsche answered the prayers of its long-suffering enthusiast base today by introducing a low-cost, low-content, no-frills Cayman to finally bring value and performance to its model line.

Ha! Made you look! Just kidding!

(Read More…)

Mazda is passing the hat around to collect the money to buy out most of Ford’s remaining share, and what looks like half of Japan is chipping in. As many as 10 firms will purchase the Mazda shares that are still held by Ford, says The Nikkei [sub]. Ford plans to cut its 11 percent stake in Mazda to a symbolic 3 percent. (Read More…)

Establishing R&D centers in China by foreign automakers is a huge trend. Of course, the trend was led by GM, which already has an alphabet soup of tech centers (PATAC, CAERC, and CATC) in the Shanghai area. Now, Toyota follows with their own. Following prevailing fashion, it will be called TMEC. (Read More…)

Some say the future of the car business is in China… and for certain employees of Jaguar Land Rover, the maxim seems to apply awfully literally. The Telegraph reports:

Des Thurlby, human resources (HR) director at [JLR], said he had held “pointed” discussions with up to five of the company’s best employees urging them to consider moving “out of leafy Warwickshire” to China to help the company capitalise on emerging markets. Those who refused had less chance of being shortlisted for a future top job at the company…

Mr Thurlby said: “We’re getting to the point where we’re having some quite pointed conversations with people, where we’re saying, ‘listen matey, if you want to go to the top you’re going to have to go to China, Russia or the US. We’re an international business, we’re 70pc overseas. It’s critical you move out of leafy Warwickshire.'”

Oh dear… this is what happens when you stop designing your interiors like a 19th Century club room, isn’t it?

With strong new C-segment competition coming in the form of the Chevy Cruze, Hyundai Elantra and Ford Focus, upcoming refreshes of the Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla seem to be taking a low-key approach to the extroverted upstarts. Are the kings of the compact class resting on their laurels? Can they afford to coast on reputation alone? History tells us that complacence leads to trouble in this industry…

Because driving is one of the freedoms Americans take most seriously, the government faces fundamental challenges to any attempt to reduce traffic fatalities. As the Secretary of Transportation’s crusade against distracted driving proves, raising awareness does nothing until the market has as much incentive to fix the problem as contribute to it. Luckily, when it comes to the problem of out-of-control elderly drivers, the free market seems ready to offer an actual solution: video games. A study published in the Journal of the American Geriatric Society [PDF here] indicates that cognitive training for seniors can actually make a major impact on elderly accident rates.

(Read More…)

The Economic Times of India reports that Hyundai is worried about Europe. Hyundai Europe’s Vice President, Allan Rushforth, felt positive about 2010. “This year we’ll probably achieve 2.7 percent market share in a market of around 13.49 million,” he said. But with regards to 2011, he poured cold water on that year. “Next year will be really interesting. We have yet to see scrappage washout – the year-on-year effects of scrappage from the reported registration data…..I think the first half-year will be really, really tough.”

Reuters has a different story. (Read More…)

You could look at the accident one of two ways. The first way to look at it was that the backhoe was at fault. It backed out halfway across the northbound exit ramp to Bethel Road from Ohio SR-315, forcing my brother to take too rapid of an avoidance maneuver, spin his pristine Porsche 944, […]

Steve writes:

I’m no lover of cars, but since I sold my motorcycle, going bicycle only is proving problematic. Being a one-car family has worked better in theory than in practice. I spend a lot of time mountain biking and trail running. So I need something that can handle muddy, sweaty people and haul dogs and bicycles and the occasional road trip to races. The dog is a collie and my wife and can get by fine with a hitch rack. I don’t the need the car for commuting to work – I ride a bicycle to work every day rain or shine, 12 months a year. Also, I have fundamental distrust of automatic transmissions.

(Read More…)

Americans are a forgiving sort, and redemption from sin is just the right gesture away. Well, that applies more to politicians and celebrities than to car companies. It can be a little more challenging to overcome the damage from a poor quality car, especially if you’re the brand new kid on the block. Just ask Yugo; they quickly walked away. As did Peugeot, Alfa, Fiat and countless other imports, even though they had been around for decades.  But the Koreans are a tough and determined folk, and when they got their less-than Excellent head handed to them on a platter, they dug in their heels and figured out what it would take to be given a second chance.  (Read More…)

The Wall Street Journal [sub] reports that, after selling a mere 9,000 units last year, the Honda Civic will be retired from the Japanese market. For perspective, the Civic sold 609,000 units worldwide last year. According to the report

Sales of the Civic in Japan reached their largest annual volume of 177,000 vehicles in 1975, accounting for 71% of the company’s overall domestic sales that year.

What happened to the Civic? For one thing, it got bigger… and Japan didn’t. The 2011 Civic is 32 inches longer than the big-in-Japan 1975 model and weighs nearly twice as much (1,495 lbs in 1975, 2,630-2,830 lbs today). And by the looks of things (above), the forthcoming Civic refresh isn’t going to bring a whole lot to the table either, besides a corporate grille. There’s been a lot of chatter of late about Honda and its loss of “mojo”… the fact that the Civic has lost relevance in the Japanese market shows just how far Honda has come from its roots. No wonder a little mojo was lost along the way.